Love and Liberty

Whatever you do, tune in to BBC1 at 7.10 tonight for Midnight (a planet, and a title, not a time). The latest Doctor Who episode is the first I’ve ever seen before transmission*, and the first new Doctor Who on the telly since 1989 that I’ve seen for the first time without Richard. So while this little piece has no spoilers (just the odd cryptic hint, so you can read safely) I’ve not even told Richard that… I think it’s terrific. It’s a fantastic script, David Tennant is superb, and my prediction is: kids will either be bored or petrified. Probably the latter, going by my favourite feature on the BBC’s Doctor Who site – the Fear Forecasters are a family of four kids who give a commentary and marks out of five for scariness for every story. Usually, the youngest kid gives the highest mark, the oldest slightly lower; because of the nature of the horror here, I would have guessed that the scores might slant the other way this time. I was wrong… All of them have given it five out of five.

So what is it that makes it so scary? I’m not going to tell you yet, unlike this week’s Radio Times feature, which gives away a key twist. The ‘Next Week…’ and the trailers rather cleverly show you some of the old-fashioned scary bits you might expect to see, but nothing of the most striking element. One of the things that’s brilliant about it is that the idea at the centre, and even most of the deceptively simple production (though apparently it needed such careful rehearsal that it took as long to shoot as any other episode), could have worked at any period of Doctor Who, from the Sixties to the Noughties. It recalls the New Adventures Birthright and Iceberg; it has some of the terror of the mid-Seventies, when I started watching, with some of the characters displaying traits not seen so vividly since The Robots of Death; but most of all, and appropriately for a story whose very strong cast includes David Troughton, the claustrophobic drama here is easy to imagine in the Sixties.

“’Cause this is what you decide. You decide what you are.”

Ten Things I’ll Tell You:

• My key thought is that this is Dame Russell T Davies doing a Steven Moffat – and beating him at his own game, but in an unmistakeably Russell T Davies way. Rather than intricate plotting and wisecracks, this relies on intense emotions and character, but both this and the Grand Moff take one, simple, scary idea that kids could do in the playground and terrify you with it for all it’s worth.

• I used to go on day trips with my parents – and, as you can see from the trailers that this involves something similar, I hope it gives kids nightmares about them.

• There’s a great reference to one of the very few poems that I read for pleasure (and that frightened me) as a child.

• For me, it’s definitely the most frightening episode this year.

• I tend to think David Tennant does one thing in particular extraordinarily well – and he does it here.

• His Doctor also has a tendency to do something rather unwise – and he does it here several times, and very unwisely.

• I was told before Millennium and I saw it that the sound design was very special. And it is.

• It depends on character and dialogue rather than special effects or ‘action’, and I love it for it – but what do I know? I’m the man who loves Boom Town, which like this was apparently written in a couple of days flat.

• It was a superb choice for the BBC to show to a group of politicians.

• And it’s gripping drama – for me, this year’s strongest story since The Fires of Pompeii (perhaps better), but I think it’ll be a ‘Marmite’ episode, with people either loving or hating it. Let’s see…

Enjoy!


*Unless you count the one that Richard and I queued for at, appropriately, midnight.

Labels: David Tennant, Doctor Who, New Adventures